How People Analytics Can Help Change Process And Culture

How People Analytics Can Help You Change Process, Culture, and Strategy

It seems like every business is struggling with the concept of transformation. Large incumbents are trying to keep pace with digital upstarts, and even digital native companies born as disruptors know that they need to transform. Take Uber: at only eight years old, it’s already upended the business model of taxis. Now it’s trying to move from a software platform to a robotics lab to build self-driving cars.

And while the number of initiatives that fall under the umbrella of “transformation” is so broad that it can seem meaningless, this breadth is actually one of the defining characteristics that differentiates transformation from ordinary change. A transformation is a whole portfolio of change initiatives that together form an integrated program. And so a transformation is a system of systems, all made up of the most complex system of all — people. For this reason, organizational transformation is uniquely suited to the analysis, prediction, and experimental research approach of the people analytics field.

People analytics—defined as the use of data about human behavior, relationships, and traits to make business decisions—helps to replace decision-making based on anecdotal experience, hierarchy, and risk avoidance with higher-quality decisions based on data analysis, prediction, and experimental research. Working with numerous Fortune 500 companies, it has been observed that organizations use people analytics mainly to understand and drive their transformation efforts in three key ways.

Applying People Analytics in Core Process Transformation

In process transformation initiatives, particularly those driven by digitization, people analytics can measure activities and identify embedded expertise. For example, a global consumer packaged goods (CPG) company used people analytics to optimize a monthly financial process across subsidiaries worldwide. Due to diverse local accounting rules and geographic dispersion, traditional discovery conversations were difficult. Instead, the analytics team used data to establish baseline efficiencies and network maps of involved personnel. They discovered that one country was 16% more efficient—completing the process in 71 fewer person-hours and with 40 fewer people involved monthly. This insight led to collaboration with local finance leaders, who became partners in process improvement, thus enabling a bottoms-up approach to transformation that engaged frontline teams and uncovered best practices otherwise hidden.

Facilitating Cultural Transformation through Data Storytelling

People analytics also supports cultural transformation by transforming data into compelling stories that foster behavioral change. For instance, an engineering company’s analytics revealed that managers who spent at least 16 minutes per week in one-on-one conversations with direct reports had 30% more engaged teams than those who spent only 9 minutes. Sharing this insight prompted managers to increase their engagement, turning a managerial best practice into an evidence-based benchmark. Such data storytelling fosters trust and curiosity among stakeholders and applies behavioral science to cultural change. It demonstrates how facts can shift conversations and influence behaviors.

Supporting Top-Down Strategic Transformation

For strategic transformation driven by external market pressures, people analytics offers vital tools for execution. A financial services firm’s analytics team created dashboards tracking resource utilization to help leadership manage growth and cultural change. By visualizing work hours across teams, leaders could identify over- or under-utilized units and adjust workloads accordingly. Managers could also analyze onboarding effectiveness by segmenting data by employee tenure, enabling strategic decisions about resource allocation and change implementation. Mastery over organizational data empowers leaders to hypothesize, experiment, and measure progress, making large transformation initiatives more manageable and successful.

The Importance of Data-Driven Decision-Making in Transformation

Effective transformation relies on organizational agility—using data to make hypothesis-driven decisions, experiment, and adapt. The process involves careful data collection, analysis, and application to identify opportunities for change and monitor results. This approach transforms transformation from a daunting challenge to a strategic, informed process. As organizations increasingly incorporate data into decision-making, developing organizational muscle—skills and routines for data analysis—becomes essential for successful transformation.

Conclusion

People analytics is a powerful tool that can significantly enhance organizational transformation efforts. By anchoring change initiatives in data-driven insights, organizations can improve processes, foster cultural shifts, and execute strategic changes more effectively. As the complexity of modern business environments grows, leveraging people analytics will be increasingly critical for organizations seeking to navigate and lead change successfully.

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